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Sick Burn from a Blue Check
I could disable retweets on Twitter, but it’s helpful to see who retweets what, so they can be cast into the silence of the Muted Realm. Someone liked this:
Nailed him, dude!
Now: is it possible Ross was discussing the long-term effect, wherein the USA disengages from the CCP and realizes the importance of domestic production for critical items, and the American population starts to look at things that are “Made in China” with a growl and a muttered “thanks for the bug, Pooh,” and begins to look for domestic options, which leads to more hiring in manufacturing? Could that possibly be what he meant, and putting the statement next to a statement of the short-term impact says more about the Tweet’s author than Ross’ predictions?
As for the author:
No, there is no evidence that Ross meant this. What you’ve written sounds like an alternative history story to go along with Richard Epstein’s alternate history of the coronavirus.
CNN’s mission statement is basically to support the confirmation biases of their niche audience of liberal viewers with levels of TDS that dwarf the current COVID-19 outbreak. So whether or not Dale actually believes he’s scoring a goal here, or is simply tweeting something he knows will play well with CNN’s viewer base, in no way will he be asked by his bosses to even consider that Ross’ comment was on long-term reclaiming of jobs in economic sectors like pharmaceuticals and other medical equipment, while the unemployment numbers released today are in part the consequences of actions by the Chinese government. If anything, he’ll be rewarded for his Jim Acosta-like obtuseness.
Since no one is flying CNN basically reaches nobody these days.
There’s a company I would not shed a tear for if it dies.
James O’Keefe’s hidden camera expose of CNN last year showed that stuff like this is what CNN president Jeff Zucker wants from his reporters. So at the very least, Ross is pleasing his one-person audience with a tweet like that. The real question is why is stuff like this making anyone at AT&T happy, since the company said two years ago at the time of their Time-Warner buyout that they would look to divest CNN from the other Warner Media holdings. The ratings if anything have gone down since then, and AT&T has seemingly done nothing to either sell CNN to whomever will take it, or try to stem the ratings free-fall.
Do you investigate those assertions before you comment? Because the expanded interview shows exactly that. From Politico:
Thanks E J Hill.
One has to wonder if this CNN reporter is stupid, or evil. Evil would be if he knew that he was misleading. Stupid is pretty self-explanatory.
It’s one thing if Happy Meal toys are made in China, but another thing if vital medicines or military & security technology is as well. Why do business with a country who wants to destroy you as their enemy? I don’t care how cheap their labor is . . .
Those comments still don’t lend evidence to what James is implying, and if you saw the setup of the question you would see that Maria Bartiromo was asking the question as if the virus would devastate China and firm owners would see the US as relatively stable. The current situation has put that outlook to bed.
There is no reason to think that Ross was thinking in terms of grand long-term trends, but that owners would simply react to this shock in China.
Uh . . . the proper response was “I’m sorry. You’re right, EJ.” But go ahead and double-down.
I am honestly amazed how any professional can think that public display of such pedantic stupidity helps their “brand”. Twitter has done more to deflate the power of the expert class. They’ve revealed themselves to be impulsive, herd-following fools. Incapable of seeing more than an inch in front of their face. They do display an impressive degree of determination. Because it takes an awfully strong will to maintain their bubble with all the pins flying about them.
This is exactly my thinking about Twitter. While it is a cesspit, I think it has done more to reveal what an utter bag of bollocks a lot the professional class, particularly professional journalists are.
It’s a selective bubble, because in the current times of the fracturing of media options into smaller and smaller parts, networks have convinced advertisers that it’s no longer even possible to get mass audience ratings across a broad spectrum of viewers, so just settle for niche programming. That makes CNN no different in this case from the late night talk shows, which have abandoned any pretense of attempting to attract a wide range of viewers on the political spectrum, but are simply targeting a demographic of urban progressives who they have convinced and/or their advertisers see as a preferred target audience.
So Daniel Dale essentially is Stephen Colbert, that Dale’s audience is at best only a few people on Ricochet, but a ton of people on sites like Twitter or Daily Kos. And he’s also pleasing his boss, because Jeff Zucker is asking his on-air talent to act this way — tweet idiocy, win valuable extra airtime. It only stops if the advertisers pull out or if Zucker’s bosses at AT&T decide it’s causing people to switch to Verizon Wireless and DISH Network.
I’ve yet to see any “sick burn” that lived up to its billing.